[Bug-gnulib] Re: stdbool dependency?

[Simon Josefsson]

Jim Meyering <address@hidden> writes:

> Bruno Haible <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Paul Eggert wrote:
>>> This module doesn't list 'stdbool' as an explicit dependency, even
>>> though it uses <stdbool.h>.  I started to add that dependency, but
>>> it required adding a new file and I thought "Wait a minute! If
>>> someone is building an app  that requires C99, they won't need
>>> the stdbool module."
>>
>> Who is writing an application that requires C99? The only such I know of
>> is glibc. It will take years for all compilers to support C99.
>>
>> Given that it's only a few months since Emacs and GCC have switched to
>> assuming C89, I think we'll have to use 'stdbool' for a long time.
>
> Maybe I'm losing patience, but I feel that a year or two will be
> the most I'll be willing to wait before making coreutils depend on C99.
> I've had to make too many little compromises as it is, and I'd like to
> be able to undo some of them.  IMHO, we don't need to wait for *all*
> compilers to provide such support as long as most of the key ones do.
>
> Of course, if we switch coreutils and enough people report legitimate
> problems, we can always revert.

Just out of curiosity, exactly what C99 features do you want?  I can
understand stdbool, but that one seem easy to simulate.

Perhaps that hypothetical c992c89 tool, used a'la ansi2knr in
automake, discussed somewhere, could be useful here...

Regards,
Simon